NYC Half Chance For Ritz to Shine at Sweet-Spot Distance

2009 world half-marathon bronze has been highlight of his international career.

Dathan Ritzenhein, a three-time U.S. Olympian whose 2:07:47 in Chicago in October made him the fastest American marathoner of 2012, will do the NYC Half on March 17. The 13.1-miler is a good distance for Ritzenhein, the bronze medalist in the 2009 world half marathon championships in 1:00:00, 17 seconds behind Ryan Hall’s American record.

On February 2, Ritzenhein was second to Chris Derrick at the national cross country championships. He’s coached by Alberto Salazar and lives in Portland, Oregon. He’s already committed to returning to the Chicago Marathon on October 13.

You’re taking on a half-marathon again on March 17. You’ve had an American 5000-meter record and a 2:07:47 marathon. But is the bronze from the 2009 world half a career highlight, as far as international competition is concerned?Dathan Ritzenhein: In international competition, I think it probably is the highlight for me. [Zersenay] Tadese won, and his accolades speak for themselves. [He’s the half-marathon world record holder and five-time world champion at the distance]. Bernard Kipyego, who was second, has gone on to run 2:06:29 in the marathon. And the guy right behind me was Wilson Kipsang, who’s now run 2:03:42 [and won an Olympic bronze medal]. I was right in there with great guys and competition-wise, that was the best performance for me.

Was that the race for which Alberto said you were going to train for a marathon but not do a full marathon?DR: It was abbreviated, maybe, and we never really did some of the long, intense things. It was about 80 percent of a marathon training bloc, but it was only for about five weeks, so it was really short.

But that’s one thing I’ve kind of learned. My better races come out of that, where I show up to the line not necessarily under-prepared but not having too much time to get too ready. That way, you can get banged up. Just being healthy is the biggest thing for me. In Chicago last year, that was the same case in that race.

You’ve been to the NYC Half before, right?DR: The first time I was third, and I did 1:01:38, and that was in 2008, before the Olympics Games. And then last time I was 15th [in 1:01:52].

To what do you attribute your disappointing performance in 2012?DR: Well, I was just very fresh off the Olympic Marathon Trials. I think it was only seven weeks after that. Physically, I was tired, still, from the marathon, and mentally, it was a bit of a struggle. It was my first race back, and the disappointment of not making the Olympic team [in the marathon] was very fresh. I still ran under 62:00. It was an amazingly deep race, but I never like to be that far back.

You have this half-marathon on March 17 and the Shamrock Shuffle 8-K in Chicago on April 7. But is it a tough or in any way disappointing decision not to go to the world cross country championships in Poland on March 24?DR: It was, a little bit. Initially, after the marathon last year, I was kind of gung-ho and excited to do cross country. And the thing that made me disappointed about it is that it’s become very insignificant, I guess. My excitement level wasn’t going to be matched by the excitement that the race would create, unfortunately.

It’s really sad to me, because cross country is something that I love a lot. I started thinking about it over the course of the winter. Just knowing that unless I went there and I won the race, it really wouldn’t matter, probably. No one would care. Then they announced that the next cross country championships are somewhere in interior China in 2015. The race has become insignificant.

I wanted to do something that I would be excited for, people would care about. Right now, the half-marathon is this rocking distance that people love. Road running is really doing so well. I knew that I would be really excited to come to the NYC Half.

I’m sure at USA Cross Country on February 2, you were hoping and perhaps expecting to take first place. Were you training through a bit and lacking some finishing speed, or should we just give Chris Derrick credit where credit is due?DR: I was disappointed. I’d won three U.S. cross country titles and I wanted to win another one. That was the goal, and really nothing else. Since I wasn’t going to world cross country, there was no consolation prize in saying, “Well, at least I made the team.”

I’ll give Chris his due. I think he was in great shape and really ready to go and ran well. I don’t think that I was not in good shape, but I don’t think that I was fully prepared, either. I think I was in solid shape, and it’s helped me a lot. The first race after a long period off is always good and has kind of woken up my body, and I’ve had great training since then.

It’s not that I didn’t take the race seriously, but it was more like the first race of the year and I didn’t think of it so much as going in for a national championship race. And I think that’s a mistake. It kind of woke me up a little bit now. Chris is a great runner. He’s a young guy who’s coming into his own now. That’s the way American distance running has changed. You can’t just show up and expect to beat up on people.

For 2013, you’re getting away from the two-a-year marathon routine. Was there any temptation to do a spring marathon?DR: There was. I started marathoning at a really young age. I didn’t have great success at it until this year. I had some okay races but nothing like what I was capable of. I finally, really, was able to do it in Chicago, and the temptation was there to say “let’s keep going on it.” But I wanted to really think about what was going to be best for me in the long term. It beats up your body so hard to run the marathon. I felt like I should keep on my speed and my form and work on that for one more year and then move more into that [two-marathons-a-year] cycle.

But it was a temptation. You have that great success, and you’re immediately thinking, “Alright, let’s go to London, or let’s go to Boston and keep it going.” But in the long term, it’s going to be best for me to keep one more year of fast, hard training in.

From comments you’ve made, it sounded like you had more of a big-picture approach as you prepared for Chicago, that you weren’t obsessing about individual workouts that didn’t go well. You understand it was the entire entity that mattered.DR: I came to the race thinking of it as my last race of the season instead of it was my season. With the marathon, you could devote six months to it. Some athletes do that. I just don’t think that it’s good, because then it’s either a complete success or a complete failure. I thought, “I need to show up and be healthy, and if I can do that, then I know I’ve trained well all year long.”

Maybe I don’t do these specific workouts that I’ve done in the past, but I did a few which told me you can’t fake these workouts. You have to be really fit to do them. So I had the confidence going in, but I’d also put together a whole year, for the first time since 2007. That’s more important for me.

This may be your last truly serious track season. What do you hope to get out of it?DR: I’m looking at the direction my career’s going in now. I’ve had that success in the marathon. Eventually, unless you’re Bernard Lagat, time catches up with you. It might be one of the last years when I’m still fairly young so I could still run pretty fast. I want to run under 27:00 [for 10,000 meters]. It’s the one big goal I have left. I ran 8:11 for two miles and 12:56 [for 5000 meters]. I’ve competed well at the world championships [sixth in 2009] and I think I can do that well or better again, but the real goal is break 27:00. It’s hard when you put a number on it like that, because everything has to go right.

The 2008 Olympic marathon in Beijing was pretty much full-tilt out of the gate. London’s was somewhat different. Assuming you’re on the starting line for the marathon at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016, what kind of race would give you the best chance of medaling?DR: We had this conversation with me and our sports psychologist and Alberto. We talked about what I need to do to feel like I can medal in Rio. It has to be one thing or a combination of things. I have to have run 2:06something. Or I have to have been top three in a major marathon. Or both. One of those things will give me the confidence that it can happen on that day.